And the problem is, he thinks I'm never interested in his ideas because I basically just nod my head and go "ok" because I KNOW that I will never hear mention of it again and it will never happen.
I mean the guy has been really good about going to work everyday for over a month now, but still says he wants to find another job. I hear again and again about how the pay is great but he hates the drama and he can still make a decent salary other places that won't be as much but he'll be happier. He has downloaded several applications, but that's as far as he gets. He never prints them out, fills them out, updates his resume because that takes too much work.
And just simple things like I've heard for 2 weeks now that "We need to get our pumpkins soon". I have never been big on pumpkins. I mean they are fine to put out front as is, but I have no desire to carve them. Okay then pick up a pumpkin on your way home from work! You drive by the pumpkin patch every single day! Then it will get to be Halloween and I'll say "You never got a pumpkin" and he'll retort with "Well you weren't interested in getting one. You're such a grinch!" It will be ALL MY FAULT that we didn't get one, when really he just doesn't want to take the time himself to stop and get one but if I do it, it's fine. Then he tells me we need to get candy for trick or treaters. I say that it's still 2 weeks away and he goes "Well I'd rather have it sooner than later". Why??? It's 2 weeks away! Do you think they are going to run out of candy? However then a few days later he tells me we should go to this party downtown that night and we should rent costumes. Okay if we go to the party we won't be handing out candy so do I NOT get candy? Then he emails a costume shop asking if they have these certain costumes and he hasn't heard back and I haven't heard anything more from him regarding this party. Either way it will be my fault because I didn't show interest.
Same goes with this whole pickling idea he had. I heard for months about how we need to learn how to pickle now that we have a garden. Once again, I have no desire to pickle but knock yourself out! Nope. I heard again and again that "I"should start doing some pickling. Then one day when he was out in the yard doing something he told me I should make myself useful and pickle the cukes. Fine I'll pickle the damn cukes! The process took a long time and I didn't enjoy it and he didn't have to life a finger to do any of it! It would have been too much of a process for him.
How do you deal with your spouse who comes up with all these ideas but never does anything about them or expects you to run with the idea once they come up with it?
I got no answer, but I can concur
Submitted by I'm So Exhausted on
Mapper,
I have been working very hard on my own internal scream.
We can be walking somewhere, like the county fair merchants' building, or watching TV, and some specific 'product' will come into view. And my spouse pipes up with, "Hey. That's MY idea. I came up with that years ago. See that style of snow-plow over there? I thought of it. My idea. Someone else is making millions off MY idea."
Sigh. I have empathy for him. His fear of failure has put any and all of his 'ideas' in boxes and binders and folders. He is unwilling to spend any money on promoting the idea, UNLESS someone will guarantee him a homerun.
That is just NOT the way it works. Oh, yes, there could be that one-in-a-million shot, but for most inventors, you gotta pound the pavement and sell your idea. And accept not everyone is a winner.
I think this falls under the same idea you described..
My husband has been dubbed Last-Minute-Smith because he waits till the very last minute to do stuff. Hey, it usually ends up as a full-blown genius production, but at what cost? The anger, the frustration, the lack of sleep. There must be a way to tweak it. Maybe not.
I just have to steer clear.
Liz
My husband does the same thing
Submitted by redhead1017 on
Constant stream of ideas. I just nod and say "oh wow" or "that sounds great" and then don't bring it up. I spent decades researching crap for him because I thought this meant he was showing initiative; nope, it's just a symptom of ADHD.
And he also does the thing where everything is HIS idea, or he could do it better. Here's just a few examples:
If I don't go along with the delusion, he gets angry and starts complaining how I'm not supporting him. It's sad how delusional he is, really, but I think most of this is wrapped up in the fact that he's been utterly unsuccessful in life and it's easier to tell yourself a lie than face up to the truth and actually do something about it. When you're 45 and looking at the past twenty five years with nothing to show for it, that's a hard pill to swallow.
"It's easier to tell yourself
Submitted by PoisonIvy on
"It's easier to tell yourself a lie than face up to the truth and actually do something about it."
My husband's existence in a nutshell.
Yesterday would have been a
Submitted by Mapper (not verified) on
Yesterday would have been a great day to go get pumpkins. As I said before he's been telling me again and again how he wants to carve pumpkins, if nothing else, at least so we have pumpkin seeds to roast. I go out shopping yesterday morning and drive by the pumpkin patch and there's a ton of people there. I get home and say to him "There's a bunch of people getting pumpkins. It's a nice day so this is probably a good day to go get one." He goes "Yeah" and that was it. No initiative to go out. I'm still waiting for him to decorate the porch with cobwebs and stuff too which he said he wanted to do. He decided that he would rather do that than his first idea of putting up a haunted house in our backyard that kids could go through! I had to contain my laughter of a haunted house. He can't even get the initiative to buy a pumpkin but he's going to create a haunted house in our backyard??!!
Haunted house...bawahaha
Submitted by Shell10 on
Sorry but I laughed Hard. It is So much trouble buying a pumpkin BUT building a haunted house is no biggie. How twisted the thinking is. You were right, he Does want you to buy the pumpkin , scrape out the guts, carve the face, cook the seeds and everything else.
I often refer to this as, the little red hen saga. "Who will help me buy the pumpkin?". "Not I" said the husband. "Who will help me carve the pumpkin?". "Not I" said the husband .
You get the idea.
same thing here too
Submitted by dedelight4 on
I had to laugh at this because I am way past the frustration point on this subject. The constant flood of ideas from my ADHD husband is never ending, and I am drowning in a SEA of unfinished projects in the house. My father passed away last month and I went to Mich for his funeral. When I came back, my husband had tore our bedroom apart so he could rearrange it. Of course it's only half done. The bed is now in the middle of the room, my computer and desk and clothes are all in boxes, and it's a WRECK. This was so he could make more room in our bedroom, and get him away from the wall. (the wall is where the smart meter is, and he's convinced it's causing him to have headaches......but he's had headaches most of his life)
This really made me angry because the bed was also a project that he PROMISED me two years ago. I have a SEVERE back problem, and HAVE to have a decent bed to sleep on, and we needed a new bed. Hubby wouldn't buy a "china crap" bed, and insisted that he would BUILD me a good bed that would last. I KNEW it would be made out of 2 by 4's and unfinished and look crappy, but he PROMISED me that he would finish it with drawers underneath and everything. 2 years later, we STILL have a 2x4 pine board bed, with the screws all sticking out, unfinished, no drawers, and now the boards are starting to warp and it looks like CRAP. PLUS, he made it so high off the ground, I have to jump up to get in it, which hurts my back something awful. I made him PROMISE to make it according to my specifications, but he DIDN'T. He made it the way he wanted to, and not the way I NEEDED it to be. Plus, it's so heavy, it weights almost half a ton, because there's so many 2 by 4's screwed together. No one can move it alone, it takes 2 to 3 heavy lifters to move it. Also, it cost a ton more than a REAL bed would have cost us, because he bought SO MUCH WOOD. I want to scream right now, and I am inside because I've been in so much pain, and now I can't even relax in bed because of his constant PROJECTS. He knows NOTHING about building furniture, but insisted he could build a bed with drawers and it would look better than a store bought bed. It doesn't.
Plus, this past weekend, instead of finishing the bedroom, he decides to clean out HALF of the garage. (not the whole garage, half of it). He takes half the stuff out, sweeps half the dirt out to the end of the garage, and takes the water hose and hoses down HALF of the garage. The stuff on the other side of the garage gets wet, the dirt on the floor turns into mud and garbage, and he leaves half the junk outside in the driveway. Plus he was angry because of all the sawdust inside the garage. The sawdust was from HIM, cutting all the different wood things he cuts for whatever new thing he thinks up. Last fall, my daughter and I cleaned out the entire garage, vacuumed up all the sawdust from his saw, and put away all his tools, and things. Two days later, he was happy his saw table was clean again, and just HAD to cut something. He pulled everything out again, and in an hour, there was sawdust all over the garage again, wood all over, and his tools all over the floor. The clean garage didn't even last a week. So, I said never again. If he wants it dirty, it will stay dirty until he decides to face up to his messes.
The back and side yards are full of all the junk he plans to "throw away", which to my husband means my youngest daughter has to take this stuff to the dump. He actually wants our DAUGHTER to lift all this heavy stuff and go to a scary dump all by herself, and unload all this junk. WHAT IS HE THINKING? I want to smack him up side his head. This is all his junk that he continues to use and discard because he's so rough on everything, breaks everything and then it gets thrown away.
He also got angry this weekend, because no one called his ad in the paper about the lawnmower he was trying to sell. This lawnmower doesn't work, and has been sitting out in the weather for 9 years. It's worthless, but he got angry because no one wanted it. He couldn't understand why no one took him up on his "good deal" with this broken lawnmower. I couldn't even comment, because it was so unbelievable.
I have to have back surgery soon, and I am scared about it. I CAN'T TRUST HIM to make good decisions about my well being, God forbid if anything should happen. The chaos just never ends, and he gets frustrated with me because there's a few dishes in the sink. I WANT TO SLAP HIM. Somebody save me from this lunacy.
Yikes.
Submitted by PoisonIvy on
Yikes. I have one suggestion: ask someone else in your family or a close friend to be your substitute decision maker for health care decisions. There's no reason it has to be your husband. Put it in a document (health care power of attorney; you can probably print one from the Internet). I also don't trust my husband to make good or timely decisions on my behalf and so I selected my sister to be my agent years ago. I also have indicated that my brother is the person to be contacted in case of an emergency (sister lives out of town but close enough to get here; brother lives two blocks away so could respond immediately).
Some post....
Submitted by c ur self on
Sorry Dede...You husband needs good male friend...who he trusts to help keep him accountable about this stuff...Some times our good intentions and lack of follow through...can cause great grief for those who's lives are dedicated to us...If I was your next door neibor...I would be intrusive enough to encourage him....You could do the same w/my wife:).
What would happen if you gave him some deadlines...Like, if you don't get that room in order and lower the bed, and or make me a two step ladder to get in it...by whenever...I'm going to have a new bed delivered and setup in the other room?
Sometimes you have to take the bull by the horn, esp...w/ADD...The mistake I made and still do is...talking about it... and talking and talking....and never doing anything...it's like w/children, we desensitize them. If I will just set her down and tell her, now this important that you hear this...And say it calm and strait forward....And if she doesn't respond, just do it...It's like a light come on...OH...he does have feelings and a life...If I harp on it its like...blur...she don't hear anymore or care...I think we all can be that way...Good luck...
Dede the unfinished projects are piling up here too!
Submitted by Mapper (not verified) on
The door that busted 3 months ago we took down and bought a new door right away. I stained it one afternoon and he chiseled out place to put the hinges. It looked fine, almost matched the other doors, but he wanted to lacquer it to give it shine. I knew that would make it look very different from all the other doors and said that if we do it to that one then we need to do it to the other 6 doors. Well he tried to put it up and said it was just a tad too big and would have to shave the edge down a bit. I have no idea why it doesn't fit as it is a standard door and our house is only 13 years old. 3 months and it is still not up and do you think I want to go through this process with 6 more doors???!!!
He broke the footboard on our bed almost a year ago because he thought he could just lift that up to move it. He broke all the pegs out and said "Well this is the bed frame you've had since you were a child. It's time to get a new one. I'll build us a bed." Riiiiiiiight! He had me look online and pick out what I wanted. We couldn't afford one right now anyways but he said he'd build it. Whatever! I want to by one and have an actual bed frame not have one that may or may not be done in a year!
He's been saying for months how he's going to build a covered area for all the garden stuff in the backyard. Meanwhile, the tools are now sitting out there getting all rusted and if I move them to the garage he gets upset because they aren't readily available, but he thinks next month will be a good time to do it!
He talks about all these upgrades he's going to do to the house and I am Just SO SICK of it! He can't finish his current projects but can't wait to get started on the next.
Here's just a few of the
Submitted by redhead1017 on
Here's just a few of the unfinished projects:
I could go on and on. He's always coming up with new ideas - lately it's an Amazon business (just an excuse for him to buy more crap). I was laughing at the description of the bed because wow that has that ever happened in our house! He's attempted to build a satellite dish (not kidding), thinks he can do anything mechanical or house-related (he can't). It's sort of ridiculous.
I'm still waiting for the great benefits of ADHD that were touted in Melissa's book. I think I will be waiting for a long time.